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Glasgow Airport Rail Link Scrapped


Budmiester

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Load of Bollocks. The rail link didn't make a lot of sense in the first place, surely it wouldn't cost hundreds of millions of pounds to run a free bus service to the airport as suggested?

It's only bollocks if you have allowed yourself to be brainwashed by the arseholes that are resident in the house on the hill !

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Serious question... what benefit would Paisley/Renfrewshire get out of this project?

I'm glad it's been canned, but to make it party political the SNP should have cancelled it as soon as they had the chance. Sadly, they didn't. They went along with the previous administration's decision until they needed to make severe cuts (because of a crisis overseen by the national party of said administration).

The fact that £195 MILLION pounds has already been spent shows you just how ludicrous the whole thing has been.

It's an outrageous figure to have been spent before a single cm of track has been laid.

Would you rather have spent another £200m trying to justify a wantonly spent £195m?

If you ever go to Vegas, they'll roll out the red carpet for you.

Renfrewshire benefit would be that every single person going to the airport from the west (ie Gourock, Ardrossan, Ayr, Largs, Stranrar....) would have to change trains at Gilmour St, but to be honest you have to look at the bigger picture, rather just concentrating on the benefit to Paisley.

Regarding the money, what they fail to mention is that the Scottish government was not putting up all the funding. BAA had recently agreed to pay the full cost for the new station at the airport and network rail was putting up approx £190M.

How can you say its ridiculous to spend £195M before a single track is laid when you obviously don't know how much work has actually been done over the last 5 years? Its not purely a case of laying 1 mile of new track, the full network infrastructure had to be upgraded, between Glasgow and Paisley, which has been complete. Go away and find out what the money has been spent on, then come back and make that statement again.

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Guest TPAFKATS

I don't see what the benefit is for Paisley or Renfrewshire in people getting off of a train at Gilmour Street and crossing to an adjacent platform to get another train to the airport. Mibees it's just me :huh:

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Heathrow and Paris CDG are 10 miles from the respective city centres , Glasgow is 8 miles ! The CDG station connects the airport directly with most of France , just like GARL and Crossrail would do for Glasgow Airport which would make the airport far more attractive to airlines. The Scottish Government is too short-sighted and bias in favour of Edinburgh.

M74 extention, M80 upgrading, while embra struggles with the pish A720 city bypass ???

Yeah Bias, that would be about right. :blink:

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Renfrewshire benefit would be that every single person going to the airport from the west (ie Gourock, Ardrossan, Ayr, Largs, Stranrar....) would have to change trains at Gilmour St, but to be honest you have to look at the bigger picture, rather just concentrating on the benefit to Paisley.

Exactly.

That's what the Labour politicians trying to sell the idea at public meetings with people against the idea when asked that question.

If that is the best they can come up with I think this shows just how low the benefit is to the people who would suffer most as a result of it.

Basically the idea is to get people to/from the airport as quickly as possible, yes? Therefore through Paisley without touching the sides. Benefit to Paisley/Renfrewshire would be zero.

Regarding the money, what they fail to mention is that the Scottish government was not putting up all the funding. BAA had recently agreed to pay the full cost for the new station at the airport and network rail was putting up approx £190M.

That I admit I didnt' know, and it does surprise me as BAA are not known to be ones to throw cash around. I did have a quick look to see if I could find anything on it, but all I saw was a quite from them on it being cancelled: "The airport operator BAA said it was "disappointed that Transport Scotland underestimated the costs of relocating infrastructure to the extent that the project can no longer proceed"."

Doesn't sound like they're overly bothered? Maybe they realised they couldn't afford their part either?

How can you say its ridiculous to spend £195M before a single track is laid when you obviously don't know how much work has actually been done over the last 5 years? Its not purely a case of laying 1 mile of new track, the full network infrastructure had to be upgraded, between Glasgow and Paisley, which has been complete. Go away and find out what the money has been spent on, then come back and make that statement again.

I wasn't suggesting that nothing had been done with that money, just highlighting the scale of the expenditure when £195m had been spent and the actual 'business end' had only had preparatory work done on it.

What is also scary is when you look at that amount and then read this from Oct 2006: "The Transport Minister's recent statement places the out-turn cost - cost at point of completion - at between £170m and £210m. This is consistent with SPT's projections. "

If we've already spent what the whole project was expected to have costed only 3 years ago, how can we be sure that the remaining £200 million would have been enough.

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Glasgow Airport (or its owners) were paying nothing towards the cost of the rail link.

the improvements to the Glasgow/ Paisley route is a good idea but the extra stretch onto the airport was always a bad idea - wrong route, wrong price, wrong place. Only 10 passengers per train - costing £3million per year in subsidy! I can think of better ways to spend £3million.

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Pretty corrupt scenario really. £200M pished away, much of which will have founds its way back to the procurement team and supporting politicians. If that happened in the private sector there'd be c"nts out on their ear. £200M of tax = how many man days of tax payers daily slog. Some f'k'r should get electrocuted for this. Instead they'll likely get a seat on the exec board of the supplier. <_<

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Pretty corrupt scenario really. £200M pished away, much of which will have founds its way back to the procurement team and supporting politicians. If that happened in the private sector there'd be c"nts out on their ear. £200M of tax = how many man days of tax payers daily slog. Some f'k'r should get electrocuted for this. Instead they'll likely get a seat on the exec board of the supplier. <_<

Yup, it's the West of Scotland way.

Sadly I can only imagine that the same hands that are filling the pockets of corrupt politicians are also the ones that are making sure this kind of thing never gets properly investigated.

Frustrating, not just because of the corruption, but because of what it has done to the fabric of a town like Paisley. I passed the burnt out shell of the last remnant of Ferguslie Mills a few weeks back, and it almost brought a tear to my eye.

So much of our towns heritage destroyed all to line a few pockets.

Sickening.

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Glasgow Airport (or its owners) were paying nothing towards the cost of the rail link.

... apart from the new station

the improvements to the Glasgow/ Paisley route is a good idea but the extra stretch onto the airport was always a bad idea - wrong route, wrong price, wrong place. Only 10 passengers per train - costing £3million per year in subsidy! I can think of better ways to spend £3million.

The funny thing is, when you do the sums, 10 passengers per train from the airport would actually make it viable.

In what way are the improvements to the Paisley route a good idea (without the fully project)? There will be a third track installed which will marginally increase capacity between Glasgow and Paisley, but will globally have no increase to west coast routes as after Arkleston the capacity will still be the same as ever(ie just because there could, in theory be more trains between Glasgow and Paisley, this is not actually possible as there is nowhere for these "extra" trains to go once they reach Paisley from Glasgow unless ofcourse they do a U turn somewhere around barshaw golf course)

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I think this is fantastic news.

Okay, so it'd have been better if it had never been started in the first place, but the whole idea of a Glasgow Airport rail link is bizarre in the extreme.

...

Spend £340m on a rail link that is totally unnecessary... or spend a tiny fraction of that laying on free buses from the airport to Gilmour Street or Paisley St Mirren stations. Problem sorted.

As I say, I almost want to cry at the amount of money that we've already spent on this, but that sorrow is tempered by the fact the drain caused by the White Elephant Rail Link has stoppped at last.

Best news I've heard all year!

I agree.

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  • 6 years later...

Despite the posts above,

I think this ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-34931594

..is a sensible and great bit of news for the area... ( Though not great for cabbies...)

The costs cited are much lower than as quoted above by Bobby F.

Taxis don't want a Paisley Fare, the shortroods bus wastes time, then you need to change to the train with no signage to the station and grumpy uncommunicative bus drivers... I've witnessed it. It didnae work.

GOOD NEWS. :)

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Cmon chaps it's one if the finest sights known to man seeing a taxi drivers face off the airport rank when you tell him "Gilmour Street Station please" . Makes me smile every time.

"Renfrew" has the same effect, but I tend to get local taxis these days - give them nothing, I say.

:)

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Cmon chaps it's one if the finest sights known to man seeing a taxi drivers face off the airport rank when you tell him "Gilmour Street Station please" . Makes me smile every time.

My understanding is that the Train/tram will be a specially adapted train which will travel along the rail from Glasgow central to Gilmour street and then down the car park ramp (originally used to put private cars on to the trains) on tram lines onto St James street/moss street and on up to the airport on tramlines on the public roads.

Edited by insaintee
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My understanding is that the Train/tram will be a specially adapted train which will travel along the rail from Glasgow central to Gilmour street and then down the car park ramp (originally used to put private cars on to the trains) on tram lines onto St James street/moss street and on up to the airport on tramlines on the public roads.

Does that mean the first thing in Paisley international travellors will see will the ruins of the site of the great battle of Pitchers Sports ?

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My understanding is that the Train/tram will be a specially adapted train which will travel along the rail from Glasgow central to Gilmour street and then down the car park ramp (originally used to put private cars on to the trains) on tram lines onto St James street/moss street and on up to the airport on tramlines on the public roads.

The plan as I last saw is for the trains to continue to Westmarch Road, branch off and alongside the fly-over at St James. There would be a one-way loop around the airport.

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Stayed at the airport hotel at the weekend for a gig at the Hydro. There is a bus every 15 min into the centre of Glasgow. At midnight it goes hourely , was well impressed. Also when I return from offshore I always get the bus to Gilmour Street or phone a private hire to take me so never find it a problem getting to Paisley.

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Guest TPAFKATS

It would probably split in two along the demilitarised Glasgow Road. The Democratic People's Republic of Rawlston on the northern Barshaw Park side and the Republic of Rawlston on the southern Hawkhead Road side. There will be a war and the UN will intervene. The USA will send a bunch of actors to work in the MASH units.

The DPR Rawlston is really just West Penilee
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